Dear Angel,
So, there is this man I know who had all these back issues. I mean he had two titanium rods put in his back, and like five hundred operations, and like me, he struggled with the cancer that caused the whole thing, which brings up personal issues for me as well, but that’s another story. But to get to the point, he was such a good man, someone who always did the right thing, and he was so friendly to me, working at the business office at school, he’d always have a smile, and he was kind of known as the guy who always got the job done, and his kids all grew up to be awesome, and in fact one of them taught me in school, and he suffered so much for the last five or maybe seven years, and well. I hate it. Yeah.
He passed away yesterday. I know.
Yeah, one more operation, and he didn’t make it. God! Just hang on.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry for his suffering, for his family, and for all of you he’s leaving behind. Maybe that’s all I should say right now. I know you probably don’t want to hear more than this at this moment. Am I right?
Why do some people make it and others don’t? It really brings it home to me. No miracle at the end of the day, no personal lessons learned. Just a grinding down to a halt and the machines get turned off, and the lights go out. I’ve lived that a thousand times since, since….
I hear you. But Nicole, you don’t know that there were no lessons learned. Of course there were! A lifetime of lessons, not just for that brief moment or breath we take in this world, but for the breath of fresh spring air he is taking right now, and every person born on earth will take to eternity. You know that! I know you know that!
It’s easy for you to day, cause like you’re an angel. But hard to see it from the perspective of watching people who seem so good and fresh and young at heart deteriorate on the outside.
Exactly Nicole, on the outside! How old was he? Pretty old, like he had a great life, and if you could ask him now, and I could do that for you if you want, he’d tell you that. But you said it, he was young and vibrant on the inside. And that body is just like a space suit we walk around in while we are in this world, and it gets old and worn out, and when it’s time, we leave that space suit behind, and are born into the real world of spirit, and heaven. He’s free! Imagine him waking up into the morning sun of heaven free from that body full of pins and rods, and opening up his arms, standing and stretching like a young man in the prime of his youth. Feel the tears of his joy when he does that. It’s cool to be able to see that, and I’ve seen it. That’s one perk being over on this side. You get to see people so surprised to wake up and be whole again, free and young, and beautiful. Well, most people….
There is this dark part inside of me that doesn’t want to believe that. It says that’s wishful thinking. But I do know, and maybe it’s just faith, but I kind of feel like I actually “know” that there’s something to this. Maybe because I experienced my own body totally decaying from chemo, and the cancer working on destroying my brain, and my hair falling out, and turning green, and puking my freekin lungs out, and feeling like the whole world was tuning out, I could still feel, even then, that I was alive inside. Not just alive, I fought for life.
You did, Nicole, you fought like, well, like…
Hell?
No, I was going to say, “Like heaven.” There’s this beautiful passage in Isaiah, and I want you to think of this in terms of those young souls trapped in those old bodies, finally being freed, and restored to their prime in heaven. Sure, be sad. He’s not coming back, but we’re all going to end up in the same place, and be glad for him that he’s made the trip, and isn’t suffering anymore. Even if it’s a matter of faith, like you said, something inside just knows. Doesn’t it?
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:28-31)
